Solar Cycle Update: Twin Peaks?

Something unexpected is happening on the sun. 2013 is supposed to be the year of Solar Max, but solar activity is much lower than expected. At least one leading forecaster expects the sun to rebound with a double-peaked maximum later this year.

The quiet has led some observers to wonder if forecasters missed the mark. Solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center has a different explanation:

“This is solar maximum,” he suggests. “But it looks different from what we expected because it is double peaked.”

Conventional wisdom holds that solar activity swings back and forth like a simple pendulum. At one end of the cycle, there is a quiet time with few sunspots and flares. At the other end, Solar Max brings high sunspot numbers and solar storms. It’s a regular rhythm that repeats every 11 years.

Reality, however, is more complicated. Astronomers have been counting sunspots for centuries, and they have seen that the solar cycle is not perfectly regular. For one thing, the back-and-forth swing in sunspot counts can take anywhere from 10 to 13 years to complete; also, the amplitude of the cycle varies. Some solar maxima are very weak, others very strong.

Pesnell notes yet another complication: “The last two solar maxima, around 1989 and 2001, had not one but two peaks.” Solar activity went up, dipped, then resumed, performing a mini-cycle that lasted about two years.

The same thing could be happening now. Sunspot counts jumped in 2011, dipped in 2012, and Pesnell expects them to rebound again in 2013: “I am comfortable in saying that another peak will happen in 2013 and possibly last into 2014,” he predicts.

Another curiosity of the solar cycle is that the sun’s hemispheres do not always peak at the same time. In the current cycle, the south has been lagging behind the north. The second peak, if it occurs, will likely feature the southern hemisphere playing catch-up, with a surge in activity south of the sun’s equator.

Pesnell is a leading member of the NOAA/NASA Solar Cycle Prediction Panel, a blue-ribbon group of solar physicists who assembled in 2006 and 2008 to forecast the next Solar Max. At the time, the sun was experiencing its deepest minimum in nearly a hundred years. Sunspot numbers were pegged near zero and x-ray flare activity flat-lined for months at a time. Recognizing that deep minima are often followed by weak maxima, and pulling together many other threads of predictive evidence, the panel issued this statement:

“The Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel has reached a consensus. The panel has decided that the next solar cycle (Cycle 24) will be below average in intensity, with a maximum sunspot number of 90. Given the date of solar minimum and the predicted maximum intensity, solar maximum is now expected to occur in May 2013. Note, this is not a unanimous decision, but a supermajority of the panel did agree.”

Given the tepid state of solar activity in Feb. 2013, a maximum in May now seems unlikely.

“We may be seeing what happens when you predict a single amplitude and the Sun responds with a double peak,” comments Pesnell.

Incidentally, Pesnell notes a similarity between Solar Cycle 24, underway now, and Solar Cycle 14, which had a double-peak during the first decade of the 20th century. If the two cycles are in fact twins, “it would mean one peak in late 2013 and another in 2015.”

No one knows for sure what the sun will do next. It seems likely, though, that the end of 2013 could be a lot livelier than the beginning.

196 thoughts on “February solar data shows the Sun to still be slumping – but NASA says ‘twin peaks’ may happen”

March (SIDC) SSN number (I provisionally calculated) so far has started well, hovering around 70, which would suggest a possible second peak (previous one Nov.2011), but the spots are minnows
Arithmetic sum of the polar magnetic fields >(N+S)</a doesn’t indicate an imminent SC24 max

Incidentally, Pesnell notes a similarity between Solar Cycle 24, underway now, and Solar Cycle 14, which had a double-peak during the first decade of the 20th century.
How many peaks did cycle 14 have: http://www.solen.info/solar/cycl14.html

Pesnell is a leading member of the NOAA/NASA Solar Cycle Prediction Panel, a blue-ribbon group of solar physicists who assembled in 2006 and 2008 to forecast the next Solar Max. At the time, the sun was experiencing its deepest minimum in nearly a hundred years. Sunspot numbers were pegged near zero and x-ray flare activity flat-lined for months at a time. Recognizing that deep minima are often followed by weak maxima, and pulling together many other threads of predictive evidence, the panel issued this statement:

“The Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel has reached a consensus. The panel has decided that the next solar cycle (Cycle 24) will be below average in intensity, with a maximum sunspot number of 90. Given the date of solar minimum and the predicted maximum intensity, solar maximum is now expected to occur in May 2013. Note, this is not a unanimous decision, but a supermajority of the panel did agree.”

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Question for Anthony. It states that Pesnell was on the panel in 2006 and 2008, and that they selected a SS number of 90. That makes it seem as if they selected the number 90 in either 2006 or 2008, when my recollection is that the final number was selected in late 2009 or 2010. These two paragraphs seem slightly revisionist in nature given the timing in it.

I think it is worth noting that the 2nd peak of the last cycle was smaller than the initial peak so if we are using the past cycle as an analog, it would stand to reason that a 2nd peak in this cycle would probably have a lower smoothed amplitude than the initial one. To achieve that, we would 1st need to see some drop from the current levels of activity.

It was refreshing to see Dr. Phillips be candid in the lack of understanding of exactly what may happen next. Leif, David, your thoughts on Dr. Phillips commentary?

“Incidentally, Pesnell notes a similarity between Solar Cycle 24, underway now, and Solar Cycle 14, which had a double-peak during the first decade of the 20th century. If the two cycles are in fact twins, “it would mean one peak in late 2013 and another in 2015.”

Is ths true? The SC14 was not a “double Peak-Type” but a “Sixpack-Type” ( http://kaule.ath.cx:9001/uploads/sc1424.gif ). The picture compares the “Waldmeier-discontinuity adjusted” SC14 with the SC24 as far as it happend. Not a strong similarity, not in the accumulated activity and also not in the shape.

I know you don’t really like weather, since weather is not climate :-) but next week will see a major cold and snow storm for all of Europe, even reaching north of Africa… in march.
Absolutely unknown for a 13 of march.

The very early cold and snow storm that happened here in western Europe last october have been connected to very low temps by meteorologists.

It is quite interesting to see that NASA is now forced to theorize a statistical “long shot” in order to keep from admitting that their previous solar forecasts are looking to be in error. It’s similar to a poker player betting on pulling an inside straight – it can happen, but the great majority of players who bet that way lose badly.

But this also means that we are now poised at one of those fascinating “hinge points” in the data. For most of the time, those of us who pay attention to these cycles know that the predictions being made will take years and years to play out. But now – either the spots will double peak relatively soon (by the end of the year) or else a decline will set in and we’ll start heading back to the solar minimum. The data will tell us which, and in terms of this particular field, we will know fairly soon.

It strikes me that another reason for postulating a double peak is the difficulty of dealing with the consequences, both theoretically and in the real world, of a cycle which just fades away this quickly. I think I can see why trying to draw an inside straight looks like the best bet the mainline theorists have left.

Tucker says:
March 6, 2013 at 5:01 amIt states that Pesnell was on the panel in 2006 and 2008, and that they selected a SS number of 90. That makes it seem as if they selected the number 90 in either 2006 or 2008, when my recollection is that the final number was selected in late 2009 or 2010. These two paragraphs seem slightly revisionist in nature given the timing in it.
I was on that panel. The final selection was made in May 2009. Pesnell [based on Schatten’s prediction] and I were the only ones in the beginning of the process advocating a low prediction [around 75]. We eventually convinced the other members that a low prediction was in order, although few could stomach a number as low as we advocated, so 90 became a compromise.

For predicting solar cycles amplitude most solid ‘science’ could be the ‘pseudo-science’.
Here is an extrapolation from 2003, when I had no idea what all of this was about.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN.htm
So much for the experts. When the solar ‘science’ comes up with more reliable method, I shall switch to it, till then ….

edim wrote: “I agree, this cycle has not peaked yet (it’s somewhat arbitrary anyway). It’s a weak (and that means long) cycle, the next minimum not before ~2021.”

That’s a possibility – but a quick scan of the graphs included in this post reveals another, I think equally likely, possibility. Those graphs show that, at least for the most recent cycles, solar minima tend to occur about 5 – 6 years after the charted crossing point of the north/south magnetic fields. Since that just happened, this would appear to indicate that the next minima will occur in the 2018 – 2019 time frame.

Let me emphasize that I am not proposing this as a certainty, but it appears to be a solid possibility.

I am not against accurate, verified models!! But, it is obvious to me, that [their words]:

“Pesnell is a leading member of the NOAA/NASA Solar Cycle Prediction Panel, a blue-ribbon group of solar physicists who assembled in 2006 and 2008 to forecast the next Solar Max.” ;

They do not have a model of how the Sun operates. In fact, they are just a group of “Blue-ribbon” statisticians. They predict the future based on the past. If they had a reasonable model of the internal workings of the Sun, they would have not missed Cycle 24 six times over.

I would suggest the following new internal Sun model:
1) Fusion takes place on the surface of the Sun’s Core [not in the center]. The center is the waste area of spent fusion [He]. Note: the core is 75% He / 25% H. Outside the core is 75%H / 25%He.
2) Fusion produces heat. The heat rises creating latitude oriented plasma loops [perpendicular to the Suns Equator]. Through these latitude [both north and south] loops runs the major longitude plasma loops that parallel the Sun’s equator. The latitude oriented loops power the longitude loops via magnetic fields. All initially driven by fusion heat: a massive heat engine!
3) As hydrogen is used at the core surface, it must be replaced for new fusion to occur. The replacement process takes about 50 years and is needed every 360 years.
4) The 11 year Sunspot cycle that we see is the movement of the latitude plasma loops over the core surface. We see the core fusion action via interlocked magnetic fields transmitted by plasma currents.
5) The diameter of the Sun should increase every 360 years then decrease for 50 years. More heat/internal pressure, then less heat/internal pressure. Note: since the fusion does not occur in the center of the core, it does not take 100,000 years for the photons to “escape”; they are driven via interaction with the plasma loops.

In comparing predictions with observations there is an important caveat, namely that the process whose outcome is predicted is still going on in qualitatively the same manner. This may not be the case with the Sun at present.
Here is a plot comparing TSI with the sunspot number and F10.7 http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-not-following-SSN-F107.png TSI has been scaled to match SSN and F10.7 during solar cycle 23 and you can see that in SC24, too few spots and too little F10.7 are observed. My interpretation of this is that the magnetism is there, but not concentrated enough to produce visible spots with attendant F10.7 emission. This is the Livingston&Penn effect in action. So what should the prediction be? if the sunspot number no longer is a good measure for solar activity. I speculate that something like this is not unprecedented, but also happened 400 years ago, so the Maunder Minimum was not a lack of solar activity [and low TSI], but just a lack of visible spots: http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Svalgaard14.pdf and http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Svalgaard12.pdf

chris y says:
March 6, 2013 at 7:39 am“If I recall Hathaway et al from NASA predicted a max SSN of 150-170 for cycle 24 before it started and has been revising downwards EVERY TIME since then.”
Hathaway’s forecast is a description of what the cycle looks like until now combined with a fit to a the average solar cycle and so by definition will change continuously with time, just like the weather forecast will. I’m sure you would prefer a weather forecast based on the latest observations and updated in real time. Or are one of those people that rely on the Farmers’ Almanac?

Dr. Lurtz says:
March 6, 2013 at 7:34 amThey do not have a model of how the Sun operates. In fact, they are just a group of “Blue-ribbon” statisticians. They predict the future based on the past. If they had a reasonable model of the internal workings of the Sun, they would have not missed Cycle 24 six times over.
You are displaying your ignorance. The prediction of a low cycle is based on an understanding of how the solar dynamo works.

For your new theory: it looks dead on arrival. The radiative interior containing the core is dynamically stable and does not convect [no rising loops]. Energy is transported by slow diffusion taking ~250,000 years.

Another scientist with no fundamental understanding of how the sun works making another guess about the main source of warmth for the Earth. Yet, the science is settled.

======================
Let’s be fair. The solar weather guys do not claim that sunspot prediction is settled science. Neither do they claim that anyone who differs with them is either a charlatan, a nutcase, or an agent of the devil.

And and far as I can see they are considerably better at prediction than the Climate Change circus.

chris y says:Here is my list of Hathaway predictions for solar cycle 24, and the date they were made. ………
01/2006- min 1/07, 145 pk, 2010
………………
At the time of that prediction Dr. H looked at my ‘pseudo science’ formula and went into trouble to reproduce it; here you can see the graph he plottedhttp://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/HatPlot.htm
had number of standard objections, and dismiss whole shebang as worthless.
Problem that the solar and the climate science have is that “the future ain’t what it used to be”. Yogi Berra

“My Working Hypothesis”
“• The Maunder Minimum was not a serious deficit of magnetic flux, but
• A lessening of the efficiency of the process that compacts magnetic fields into visible spots
• This may now be happening again
• If so, there is new solar physics to be learned, let us not shy away from that!”

“You are displaying your ignorance. The prediction of a low cycle is based on an understanding of how the solar dynamo works.”
{Then this model must be wrong and need replacement!! Because they didn’t initially predict is low cycle!!!!!!!!!}

“For your new theory: it looks dead on arrival. The radiative interior containing the core is dynamically stable and does not convect [no rising loops]. Energy is transported by slow diffusion taking ~250,000 years.”
{Standard dogma: no creative thinking here. Standard answer: we are right and you are wrong. If you are so right, why are your predictions so wrong. Your answer will be “not my predictions, another s”. }

{Your criticism ~250,000 years sounds like the static earth theory; you would have been against tectonic plate movement. You are very careful to NOT put forth any new ideas; is this because you don’t have any? You only put forth standard statistical results. }

Dr. Svaalgard: “Or are one of those people that rely on the Farmers’ Almanac?”. How do the UK’s Met Office monster-super-computer-based long term predictions fare against the Farmers’ Almanac? Even if you regard the FA predictions as no more accurate than a coin toss, that still beats the Met Office predictions. The Met Office long term predictions have been comedy gold for the last several years, fervid dreams of global warming that failed to materialize.

Dr. Lurtz says:
March 6, 2013 at 8:19 am“You are displaying your ignorance. The prediction of a low cycle is based on an understanding of how the solar dynamo works.”
{Then this model must be wrong and need replacement!! Because they didn’t initially predict is low cycle!!!!!!!!!}
Oh yes we did: http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf from October 2004. and Schatten [2003]: “The surprising result of these long-range predictions is a rapid decline in solar activity, starting with cycle #24. If this trend continues, we may see the Sun heading towards a “Maunder” type of solar activity minimum – an extensive period of reduced levels of solar activity.”

WHY DOES THE SOLAR ACTIVITY DECLINE???? WHY DOES IT INCREASE???? Not Sunspots, but Solar activity. Not TSI, but high energy UV. Why don’t you get it??? You have stated that the Sun only has as much effect on the Earth’s temperature as CO2. A carefully crafted statement [you are good at those]. Will you admit that the Sun affects the Earth’s temperature, now, or will you wait to say that “I never said the Sun didn’t affect the Earth’s temperature”.

Did you create the Solar Dynamo model?? Or are you just a statistician using others results???

It depends strongly on your choice of smoother. By a suitable choice of smoothing period you can make the July 1906 peak appear to be the center of the first peak and the August 1908 peak the center of the second peak. From a cursory examination of the Wolf numbers since 1749 it would appear that the second peak has always been lower than the first.

@lsvalgaard; a dynamically stable solar interior just doesn’t make ANY sense, to me. The natural state of fluid matter is turbulent, not laminar, when the energy density is high and there is a sink for that energy, in this case the surface. Just look at the surface of the sun. You’re saying there is a transition from that to non-mixing somewhere in the interior where the energy is being created? C’mon! A dynamically stable interior may make calculations easier but it’s not reality.

Dr. Lurtz says:
March 6, 2013 at 8:56 amthe Sun affects the Earth’s temperature
It may have escaped you that the solar cycle, indeed, does produce a solar signal in temperature of the order of 0.1 degrees.

Did you create the Solar Dynamo model?? Or are you just a statistician using others results???
The basic dynamo model was created by Babcock and Leighton in the 1960s and was the basis for our precursor prediction method in 1978. A modern version of the model is by Choudhuri, e.g. http://www.leif.org/EOS/Choudhuri-forecast.pdf usingf input from me and colleagues.

Barry Cullen says:
March 6, 2013 at 9:20 am@lsvalgaard; a dynamically stable solar interior just doesn’t make ANY sense, to me.
Then read this attentively: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection_zone
“The Schwarzschild criterion expresses the conditions under which a region of a star is unstable to convection. A parcel of gas that rises slightly will find itself in an environment of lower pressure than the one it came from. As a result, the parcel will expand and cool. If the rising parcel cools to a lower temperature than its new surroundings, so that it has a higher density than the surrounding gas, then its lack of buoyancy will cause it to sink back to where it came from. However, if the temperature gradient is steep enough (i. e. the temperature changes rapidly with distance from the center of the star), or if the gas has a very high heat capacity (i. e. its temperature changes relatively slowly as it expands) then the rising parcel of gas will remain warmer and less dense than its new surroundings even after expanding and cooling. Its buoyancy will then cause it to continue to rise. The region of the star in which this happens is the convection zone.”
Helioseismology [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helioseismology ] allows us to measure precisely where the bottom of the convection zone is in the Sun namely at (0.713 +- 0.001)R(Sun). This means that thew inner 71% is dynamically stable and does not convect. This is a directly observed reality.

Pesnell notes yet another complication: “The last two solar maxima, around 1989 and 2001, had not one but two peaks.” Solar activity went up, dipped, then resumed, performing a mini-cycle that lasted about two years. The same thing could be happening now. Sunspot counts jumped in 2011, dipped in 2012, and Pesnell expects them to rebound again in 2013: “I am comfortable in saying that another peak will happen in 2013 and possibly last into 2014,” he predicts.

William:
Pesnell has no physical explanation for the observed abrupt change from solar magnetic cycle 23 to solar magnetic cycle 24 – the solar magnetic cycle prediction “models” are not based on a physical model of the sun – the solar magnetic cycle “prediction” models correlate past solar observations that were followed by a specific solar magnetic cycle behavior, Pesnell’s “prediction” is only valid if solar magnetic cycle 24 is the same as past solar magnetic cycles. Pesnell is likely not aware of cyclic climate change and cyclic abrupt climate change and likely is not aware there is correlation of cosmogenic isotope changes (the cosmogenic isotope changes are known to be caused by solar magnetic cycle changes and geomagnetic field changes) which indicates the sun is somehow causing past climate cycles (gradual type such as the Medieval warm period or the Little Ice Age and past cyclic abrupt climate changes such as the Younger Dryas abrupt climate change event.

The following is an alternative prediction for solar magnetic cycle 24 based on a physical solar model and a physical explanation of what caused past cyclic climate change, past abrupt climate change, and the glacial/interglacial cycle.

There is obviously a physical explanation for the glacial/interglacial cycle. This is a proxy record of how the planet’s climate has cycled for the last 5 million years. The glacial/interglacial cycle is now roughly 100,000 years long with a long glacial period of 85,000 to 90,000 years and a short interglacial period of 10,000 to 12,000 years. The paleorecord indicates interglacial periods end abruptly. There is currently no hypothesis that can physically explain abrupt climate change or the glacial/interglacial cycle. The appeal to a super high amplification factor which would enable a small forcing change such as the amount of solar insolation at N65 to trigger the glacial/interglacial period was made in an attempt to explain what the past record. Current analysis and observation indicates however that the planet resists forcing changes by increasing or decreasing planetary clouds in the tropics, which is negative feedback rather than positive (amplification) feedback.

Solar observations indicate solar magnetic cycle 24 is unusual, a special cycle, a prediction of how solar cycle 24 will unfold cannot therefore be based on observations of recent solar magnetic cycles. Solar cycle 24 appears to be the special once in 1450 year or 8000 year solar magnetic cycles that cause (assuming I understand the climate forcing mechanisms and solar magnetic cycle changes causes the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle, the Heinrich cycle, and the glacial/interglacial cycle). The Dansgaard-Oeschger climate cycle has a periodicity 1450 years or 1000 years and the Heinrich climate cycle has a periodicity of 6000 years to 8000 years.

In the later part of the twentieth century the solar magnetic cycle, based on cosmogenic isotope analysis, was at its highest activity level and the longest high activity level in 11,000 years.

http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/nature02995.pdf
Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years
Here we report a reconstruction of the sunspot number covering the past 11,400years, based on dendrochronologically dated radiocarbon concentrations. We combine physics-based models for each of the processes connecting the radiocarbon concentration with sunspot number. According to our reconstruction, the level of solar activity during the past 70 years is exceptional, and the previous period of equally high activity occurred more than 8,000 years ago. We find that during the past 11,400 years the Sun spent only of the order of 10% of the time at a similarly high level of magnetic activity and almost all of the earlier high-activity periods were shorter than the present episode.

Last Heinrich Event – Younger Dryas Abrupt Cooling Event
The Younger Dryas is one of the most well-known examples of abrupt change. About 14,500 years ago, the Earth’s climate began to shift from a cold glacial world to a warmer interglacial state. Partway through this transition, temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere suddenly (William: With 70% of the Younger Dryas cooling occurring in a decade. One of the unexplained paleoclimate puzzles is what is physically capable of cooling the earth so rapidly. A massive forcing change is required and a forcing change that over rides the planetary temperature regulating mechanism which is to increase or decrease clouds in tropics is required) returned to near-glacial conditions (Figure 6). This near-glacial period is called the Younger Dryas, named after a flower (Dryas octopetala) that grows in cold conditions and became common in Europe during this time. The end of the Younger Dryas, about 11,500 years ago, was particularly abrupt. In Greenland, temperatures rose 10° C (18° F) in a decade (Figure 6; Cuffey and Clow, 1997).

William: This article hypothesizes that Younger Dryas abrupt climate change has caused by an interruption to the North Atlantic drift current. A series of papers in the last 10 years indicate the cooling due to a complete interruption of the North Atlantic drift current is orders of magnitude too small to explain the Younger Dryas cooling and that the interruption to the North Atlantic drift current occurred a 1000 years before the Younger Dryas cooling event.

As Livingston and Penn noted the magnetic field strength of newly formed sun spots is decaying linearly. The sunspots are formed from magnetic ropes that are formed at the solar tachocline (the tachocline is the thin layer that separates the solar convection zone from the solar radiative zone.) The magnetic field strength of newly formed sunspots can only decay linearly if the magnetic ropes that are formed at the tachocline and rise up to form sunspots are decaying linearly. (The observation that the magnetic field strength of individual sunspots is decaying linearly supports the assertion that sunspots are formed from magnetic ropes that are created at the tachocline.) The magnetic ropes that rise up through the convection zone require a minimum field strength to avoid being torn apart by turbulence in the convection zone. As the magnetic field strength of the magnetic ropes continues to decline the turbulence in the convection zone is tearing the magnetic ropes apart. The solar cycle 24 sunspot groups are observed to made up of many short lived tiny sunspots, which are referred to as spores.
As the solar magnetic cycle was at its highest activity in 11,000 years in the last 70 years and there are D-O cycles and Heinrich event cycles in the paleo record, if the sun caused the past climate cycles and as the solar magnetic field strength of individual sunspots is decaying linearly, assuming the past climate cycles were caused by the sun and the sun is entering the special cycle that cause climate cycles (we have already observed planetary warming, the warming however has stalled which cannot be explained the AGW hypothesis) the following a prediction for solar cycle 24.

If solar magnetic cycle is the special solar cycle that is hypothesized to cause Heinrich events, rather than the solar cycle that causes the D-O cycle which is a Maunder minimum type cycle, the solar magnetic cycle will be terminated and will not be physically capable or restarting via the normal mechanism that creates the magnetic ropes at the tachocline and that are then released to rise up to the surface of the sun. (The magnetic rope mechanism requires the residual solar magnetic fields from past cycle sunspots as a seed to form new powerful magnetic ropes. It appears based on observations solar magnetic cycle 24 sunspots are now too small and do not have sufficient field strength to survive the trip down through the convection zone to the tachocline. The number of sunspots and the lifetime of sunspot groups will continue to decline. The sun will be spotless in roughly 12 months. A spotless sun in the middle of solar magnetic cycle is anomalous as the normal solar magnetic cycle has a gradual rather than an abrupt end.

If solar observations in the next 12 months support the above prediction that solar cycle 24 is the special solar cycle that causes a Heinrich cyclic event rather than the type of solar magnetic cycle that causes a Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle, I can provide more details concerning what to expect next.

No. Twin Peaks was Lost before they were able to fully envision and subsequently condense Lost for TV, thus the presentation was Northern Exposure processed through X-Files.

Amazingly, I believe I only ever saw a few episodes, although in that ancient age you could keep track of many different shows by simply reading summaries and descriptions in the TV Guide.

This completes the Search Engine Seeding (SES) section, whereby enough terms have been dropped that searchers for “Twin Peaks” info might be directed to this page on this site, in the hopes they might sufficiently be exposed to enough real factual science that learning might possibly occur without warning.

William Astley says:
March 6, 2013 at 10:09 amthe solar magnetic cycle prediction “models” are not based on a physical model of the sun
This displays your ignorance, see e.g. http://www.leif.org/EOS/Choudhuri-forecast.pdf
The rest of your comment is [mostly wrong] speculation.

[I] As a result, the parcel will expand and cool. If the rising parcel cools to a lower temperature than its new surroundings, so that it has a higher density than the surrounding gas, then its lack of buoyancy will cause it to sink back to where it came from.[/i]

TheHermit says:
March 6, 2013 at 10:33 am“…then its lack of buoyancy will cause it to sink back to where it came from.”
The sun sounds like a giant lava lamp. Groovy.
Actually, what it means is that the interior does not convect at all. The outer 29% does, that is where it looks like a lava lamp.

I live in Chicago and noticed that big snow storms here have mostly cycles of 11+-1 years: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/01/31/the-10-worst-snowstorms-in-chicago/
They seem to occur 2-4 years after a solar activity through : 1916 (through) – 1918 snow storm, 1925/1929, 1935/1939, 1965/1967, 1976/1979,1997/199, 2009/2011
Of course this is just an observation of a regular guy, not a scientific one.

What counts as a “peak”; the smooth line (more representative of the underlying process?) for cycle 14 had only one peak, approximately a long “plateau” with a large standard deviation in the deviations from the smooth.

re: younger dryas. I still favor the idea that a large meteor/asteroid fragment struck the ice sheet, triggering the northern hemisphere temperature drop. If it was big enough, it would have gone a long ways towards driving the north american megafauna towards extinction as well.

lsvalgaard: Hathaway’s forecast is a description of what the cycle looks like until now combined with a fit to a the average solar cycle and so by definition will change continuously with time, just like the weather forecast will. I’m sure you would prefer a weather forecast based on the latest observations and updated in real time. Or are one of those people that rely on the Farmers’ Almanac?

Hathaway’s predictions are good “one step ahead” predictions, possibly better than simple extrapolation of empirical model fits. They have been shown to be poor predictors of 3 years ahead. If for some reason you are interested in, say, 8 years from now, you would ignore his models. There might not be any models of solar variability that you would want to cite in support of, say, a plan or public policy, for 8 years from now, but Hathaway’s models would certainly be in the group to which you would give little weight.

3) As hydrogen is used at the core surface, it must be replaced for new fusion to occur. The replacement process takes about 50 years and is needed every 360 years.
4) The 11 year Sunspot cycle that we see is the movement of the latitude plasma loops over the core surface. We see the core fusion action via interlocked magnetic fields transmitted by plasma currents.
5) The diameter of the Sun should increase every 360 years then decrease for 50 years. More heat/internal pressure, then less heat/internal pressure. Note: since the fusion does not occur in the center of the core, it does not take 100,000 years for the photons to “escape”; they are driven via interaction with the plasma loops.

I’m far from an expert on the Sun, although I do read what I can to learn. I would have to ask you to defend 3) — why and how would hydrogen need to be replaced “every 360 years”? Are you asserting that the environment there is somehow static for 360 years (while hydrogen is burned) and then suddenly changes to dynamic while new hydrogen is cycled in by some process? What process? Why wouldn’t there be a continuous dynamic diffusion of hydrogen and helium in and out, given the enormous temperatures involved?

Then, what does 4) even mean? We see “core fusion action” via interlocked magnetic fields transmitted by plasma currents?

Finally, we have been observing the sun with pretty good instrumentation for at least 150 years, if not longer. We’ve had telescopes for all of the 410 years you claim for a major breathing mode oscillation of solar diameter. You claim that there is some sort of continuous consumption and nearly instantaneous equilibration without any sort of diffusive latency in 4 and 5, so one would think that we would be able to directly observe the proposed modulation of solar diameter as it happens in real-time with modern instrumentation. Is there the slightest bit of evidence that any such thing happens? Is there any e.g. modulation of neutrino flux suggesting a variable burn rate in the solar core?

I do not know the answers to these questions for certain (although I would guess that Lief does), but I think that at solar core temperatures it would be very difficult to significantly disequilibrate any diffusive process. I think that the photon mean free path inside a plasma at solar densities is pretty straightforward to compute, and with known boundary conditions at the core and surface, it seems as though it would be a difficult to get the diffusion as wrong as you claim that it is gotten. Without enough photon density it rather seems as though the sun’s outer part would rapidly collapse, as the photons are in large part what prevents it from doing so, if my limited understanding is correct (and the outer photosphere where they escape is in fact the place where it does “collapse” in the sense that one can no longer maintain a plasma and the surface forms). Finally, I don’t recall reading about any observations supporting a 410 year breathing mode modulation of solar diameter. Do you have any references?

I like to check out the view of the Sun a few times a week on spaceweather.com. I noticed a somewhat large increase of sunspot activity about a month ago around the time the sun’s pols were shifting and sunspots migrating toward the equator. I notice sunspots migrating away from the equator currently. Just personal observations.

Matthew R Marler says:
March 6, 2013 at 11:42 amWhat counts as a “peak”; the smooth line (more representative of the underlying process?) for cycle 14 had only one peak, approximately a long “plateau” with a large standard deviation in the deviations from the smooth.
Ask Pesnell about this :-) More seriously, if one plots the activity separately for each hemisphere for cycle 14 http://www.leif.org/N-S-Asymm-SC14-month-Groups.png is is clear that the Northern Hemisphere [blue] peaks two years before the South [red], so in that sense you might talk about ‘two peaks’ although Pesnell did not do that. Here is more on such asymmetries: http://www.leif.org/research/ApJ88587.pdf

Matthew R Marler says:
March 6, 2013 at 12:00 pmHathaway’s predictions are good “one step ahead” predictions, possibly better than simple extrapolation of empirical model fits.
And that is what they meant for.

plan or public policy, for 8 years from now, but Hathaway’s models would certainly be in the group to which you would give little weight.
NASA policy [e.g. on whether to de-orbit the Hubble Space Telescope] is not based on Hathaway’s models, but on mine [and Schatten’s – really the same]. On the other hand once maximum is past and we are say 3 years before minimum, the polar field precursor will predict with some accuracy the size of the next cycle some 8 years in the future.

William Astley says:
March 6, 2013 at 10:09 am
the solar magnetic cycle prediction “models” are not based on a physical model of the sun
This displays your ignorance, see e.g. http://www.leif.org/EOS/Choudhuri-forecast.pdf
The rest of your comment is [mostly wrong] speculation.

William, Hello:
1) Pesnell’s prediction of a twin peak in solar activity prediction is based on what? A physical solar model? What is the physical explanation for the observed linear decline of magnetic field strength of newly formed sunspots? What is the physical explanation for the observed cycle 24 small and short lived sunspots? Your link to sunspot cycle predictions appears to have nothing to do with explaining the difference in solar cycle 24 and other cycles. Is there any discussion of why solar cycle 24 is different from other solar magnetic cycles among specialists?

2) You have copied your work on historic sunspot counts a couple of times, in response to my quoting of Usoskin’s paper that asserts that solar magnetic cycle activity in the later half of the 20th century was the highest in 11,000 years. I do not see how your work on historic sunspot count invalidates Usoskin’s Nature published paper that used cosmogenic isotope analysis to support his assertion. The issue is past and recent solar heliosphere changes, not sunspot counts. The assertion that the sun was at its highest activity level and the longest time at high activity in 11,000 years explains the late 20th century warming and will explain the cooling, if there is cooling caused by the solar cycle 24 slowdown or interruption.

3) I am predicting either: 1) a solar cycle slowdown which is not controversial as a cycle slowdown is now the consensus prediction and planetary cooling which some believe is controversial or 2) an interruption to the solar magnetic cycle and planetary cooling. Based on recent observations it appears the interruption to the solar magnetic cycle is most likely. The Dansgaard-Oeschger climate cycle, the Heinrich climate cycle, and the glacial/interglacial climate cycle happened for physical reasons. There are cosmogenic isotope changes at each of these events which indicates the sun is causing what is observed. There is a set of solar system observations, geomagnetic observations, and astrophysical observations to support the “speculative” and “wrong” solar model that I am proposing, however, I do not want to distract the conversation from solar cycle affects on planetary temperature unless there is unequivocal observational evidence that the solar magnetic cycle has been interrupted.

If there is planetary cooling, I will join the conversation in this forum to discuss how solar magnetic cycle changes cause planetary warming and cooling.

If there is unequivocal observational evidence that the solar magnetic cycle has been interrupted, then understanding how that is possible and what to expect next is no longer an academic problem and I will return to the forum with papers and observations to support strawman hypothesized mechanisms to explain how the solar magnetic cycle can be interrupted.

Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years
Here we report a reconstruction of the sunspot number covering the past 11,400 years, based on dendrochronologically dated radiocarbon concentrations. We combine physics-based models for each of the processes connecting the radiocarbon concentration with sunspot number. According to our reconstruction, the level of solar activity during the past 70 years is exceptional, and the previous period of equally high activity occurred more than 8,000 years ago. We find that during the past 11,400 years the Sun spent only of the order of 10% of the time at a similarly high level of magnetic activity and almost all of the earlier high-activity periods were shorter than the present episode.

Leif, all of the 11 year cycles have two peaks in my opinion, it’s just that they are not noticeable in some cycles when they are in phase together, The first peak occurs when the magnetic field winds up and after the polarity reverses the second peak occurs when the magnetic field winds down.
The timing, amplitude and phase of magnetic fields are governed by well known laws. The size, strength and duration of magnetic fields and cycles observed on the sun have no different properties than that of other observable magnetic fields.

Browsing back in history a the smoothed curves primarily (which is something of a crapshoot based on how the smoothing was applied)shows quite a few with double or “prolonged” peaks (e.g., Cycle 16, peak ran from about 1927 to 1929, peaking at about 75–same as today), but I’ve seen none thus far that have a 2nd peak higher than the 1st. I see nothing in the history of Solar Cycles to suggest a basis for such a suggestion (higher 2nd). (http://www.ips.gov.au/Educational/2/3/1)

If we want to toss around ideas of “possibilities” then we could also theorize that we could have a series of 20 peaks in the current cycle, or that it will actually run about 22 years. Just because it’s not happened in recorded history (back to 1750) doesn’t mean it COULD NOT BE “possible,” maybe. But certainly very unlikely. Also, many of those with double peaks appear to be coincident with very low sunspot numbers…

In the end, we have a solar theory and limited observations. What will be will be and hopefully, someone will come up with an advancement in the theory that will help with future predictions. In the meantime, I believe we will finally have observations that can possibly help define the overall solar influence on the Earth’s climate and climate variability.

William Astley says:
March 6, 2013 at 1:27 pm1) Pesnell’s prediction of a twin peak in solar activity prediction is based on what?
You were referring to solar cycles in general. If you restrict yourself to Pesnell that is another story. The physics behind that prediction seems to be that magnetic flux must average to zero over longer time scales, so if we have had more flux in the North we would expect the deficit to be made up later in the South. Observations of many past cycles bear that out.

Is there any discussion of why solar cycle 24 is different from other solar magnetic cycles among specialists?
Yes, the prevailing view is that the cycle is not special in the past couple of centuries. I disagree with that in thinking that we may be in for a qualitative different regime as we had during the Maunder Minimum. There are lots of theories explaining the MM. [too many IMHO].

I do not see how your work on historic sunspot count invalidates Usoskin’s Nature published paper that used cosmogenic isotope analysis to support his assertion.
His analysis is based on calibration to the Group Sunspot Number, so is not independent of that.

The issue is past and recent solar heliosphere changes
We have now a good reconstruction of the heliospheric parameters back to the 1830s and they show that the recent past is not especially active.

The assertion that the sun was at its highest activity level and the longest time at high activity in 11,000 years explains the late 20th century warming and will explain the cooling, if there is cooling caused by the solar cycle 24 slowdown or interruption.
This is a circular argument and wishful thinking. And again you use the magic word ‘interruption’. I have asked you many times what that means and never gotten an answer. Perhaps this time you would be so kind as to provide one…

the solar magnetic cycle has been interrupted.
Since you have not told us what you mean by ‘interrupted’ no discussion is possible.

If you want some duelling papers, read this one: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL038004-Berggren.pdf
“A comparison with sunspot and neutron records confirms that ice core 10Be reflects solar Schwabe cycle variations, and continued 10Be variability suggests cyclic solar activity throughout the Maunder and Spoerer grand solar activity minima [so no ‘interruption’ whatever that means] Recent 10Be values are low; however, they do not indicate unusually high recent solar activity compared to the last 600 years.”

Sparks says:
March 6, 2013 at 1:38 pmThe first peak occurs when the magnetic field winds up and after the polarity reverses the second peak occurs when the magnetic field winds down.
‘No, the first peak [if there are more than one] results from one hemisphere being more active than the other. The second peak occurs when the other hemisphere catches up: http://www.leif.org/research/ApJ88587.pdf

Matthew R Marler says:
March 6, 2013 at 2:05 pmLeif Svalgaard, thank you for your replies.
You are welcome.

Eugene says:
March 6, 2013 at 1:58 pmI believe we will finally have observations that can possibly help define the overall solar influence on the Earth’s climate and climate variability.
I will paraphrase, if I may:
I think we will finally have observations that can possibly help define the overall solar influence on the Earth on the Earth’s climate and climate variability.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/L-L.htm

Now, now. . . let’s have a little sympathy for the solar cycle scientists. The poor bastiges do not have the advantage of the Climate “scientists” of being allowed to make predictions that can only be falsified once they are safely retired or under the turf.

‘No, the first peak [if there are more than one] results from one hemisphere being more active than the other. The second peak occurs when the other hemisphere catches up:

There are two peaks, I agree one is usually more active than the other, I think you may have misunderstood my point, (possibly because you lifted a part of it out of context).

At the start of a solar cycle when the Magnetic field is beginning to skew around the sun the magnetic field ‘winds up’ around the entire sphere, the field will begin interacting directly with itself and observed activity increases, this activity continues until a point is reached where the polarity flips, the magnetic field then begins to ‘wind down’, during the beginning of this ‘wind down’ the magnetic field becomes loose and unwound and is observed as being chaotic, (in fact it is not) the ‘wind down’ of the field continues and this unwound chaotic phase will decrease, at this point the field will continue to interact directly with itself toward solar minimum.

Leif, if you remember, I brought up the possibility of a double peak awhile back, This was because at the time when I studied the timing of the current cycle and the peak of activity seemed to be out of phase.

An interruption to the solar magnetic cycle would occur if Livingston and Penn’s observation that the magnetic field strength of newly formed sunspots continues, assuming the cause of that observation is a decline of field strength of the magnetic ropes that rise up from the tachocline to form sunspots on the surface and assuming the solar model noted below is correct.

The tachocline rope model assumes that the seed to form the next rope at the tachocline is residual magnetic field from past cycle sunspots. A minimum field strength is required for the past sunspots to survive their trip through the convection zone.

Unless there is observational evidence that indicates this abbreviated explanation is correct (i.e. an interruption is taking place) there is nothing for us to discuss. If an interruption is taking place, there is a problem which needs to be addressed.

Sparks says:
March 6, 2013 at 4:22 pmAt the start of a solar cycle when the Magnetic field is beginning to skew around the sun the magnetic field ‘winds up’ around the entire sphere, etc…
No, that is still not how it works. There is no ‘unwinding’ of the field.

William Astley says:
March 6, 2013 at 6:07 pmAn interruption to the solar magnetic cycle would occur if Livingston and Penn’s observation …etc
But what is an ‘interruption? You might just have said “hut-hut-hut occurs if L&P etc”. Is is disappearance of the cycle? Can’t be because we know that cosmic rays are still modulated during Grand Minima. Is it that the polarity of the poles don’t reverse? What? Be specific.

The tachocline rope model assumes that the seed to form the next rope at the tachocline is residual magnetic field from past cycle sunspots.
It is, but probably only from the last cycle, not several.A minimum field strength is required for the past sunspots to survive their trip through the convection zone.
Just the opposite occurs: the weak seed field is amplified on its trip until it is strong enough to rise to the surface. On its way up it is shredded to pieces. Once at the surface the pieces reassemble to form a sunspot group. This process has been observed [it happens for every group] and the re-assembly has been known for more than 150 years. It is obvious for anyone simply watching.
The L&P effect is likely that the re-assembly process is operating less efficiently right now. We don’t know why, but there could be many reasons.

Ged says:
March 6, 2013 at 5:25 pmDo we currently see an asymmetry forming between the northern and southern hemisphere fields with this cycle?
Here http://www.leif.org/research/SC14-24-Groups-Months.png is the activity plot for cycle 14 and for cycle 24 separately for hemispheres. North is blue and South is red. The thin lines are for monthly means and the thick lines are for a centered yearly mean. You can see that early in cycle 24, the North was much more active. Now the South has caught up [still some variation down in the noise]. I expect the South to eventually overtake the North to restore some balance [as it usually does], but with the Sun, you never know for sure….

Solar cycle 24 correlation with solar cycle 14. My thinkolator just buzzed. Novarupta erupted in 1912 at cycle 14 end. There was some extreme weather for a couple years in the NH. There was another huge eruption maybe equal in size at the other end of that solar cycle in Guatemala 1902, but it was a flank eruption without the altitude.

David Archibald comes to mind… saying we have a bigger chance of a large eruption. If we’re going to have cycle 14 déjà vu I hope the other doesn’t.

Sparks says:
March 6, 2013 at 10:50 pmI was describing how the Suns magnetic field behaves not how it works.
In my book there is no difference.It is always best to use words that are as close to what actually goes on as possible.

if you wind a magnetic field around a sphere, flip the polarity it will unwind, how would you describe it
It will still be wound. And, by the way, what flips at solar maximum are just the polar caps, not the rest of the Sun. Better describe things the way they actually are. Stop struggling against doing what is proper and right.

The sun will splutter and die. There will be a night lasting a week, the sun glowing a deep red like a piece of coal until it explodes into action again with a vengeance, scorching everything which can not hide in a hole. This is how the dinosaurs died.

“In my book there is no difference.It is always best to use words that are as close to what actually goes on as possible.”
I may as well copy and paste from your website, but where would the fun be without a discussion and how will I ever learn :)

It will still be wound.
That is correct, until it becomes unwound, you seem to agree with my description of how the Suns magnetic field behaves, at solar minimum the suns magnetic field stretches well into the planetary solar system, this is when it is unwound. There is nothing wrong with my description of this.

what flips at solar maximum are just the polar caps
Yes, the polarity of the caps flip. What’s your point?

1) because they predicted higher levels and don’t want to admit they were wrong, and

2) seriously decreased solar activity would lead to a conclusion of lowered temperatures to come, which would destroy belief in AGW and interrupt all of the funding and careers that are based on it.

Seriously, does anyone actually believe that NASA is a scientific organization and not a purely political one? The agency who said, at this time of a collapsing space program, that his top priority for his agency was “outreach to muslim countries”????

Walter Dnes says:
March 7, 2013 at 1:08 am* the pink trace comes down to the zero line, BUT BOUNCES BACK UP
* similarly, the red trace comes up to the zero line, BUT BOUNCES BACK DOWN
The pink trace is just the mirror image of the red tract [the latter being the real data], and, yes, it bounces around a bit as it always does [look at some of the other crossings].

At the very least, it would seem that we’re not at max yet, and will have to try the zero crossing again.
The two hemispheres are often out of sync [at times up to two years] and it is an oversimplification to think that there is such a thing as a single, well-defined ‘maximum’. The North has reversed now, but the South is still about a year away. Here are the detailed story: http://www.leif.org/research/WSO-Polar-Fields-since-2003.png as you can see there is a strong annual variation having to do with we see the South pole better in March [and the North better in September]. The difference [green curve labelled N-S] between the blue (N)orth and the red (S)outh eliminates the annual variation and gives a rough indication of the Sun’s ‘dipole moment’.

Sparks says:
March 7, 2013 at 2:20 amuntil it becomes unwound
It simply does not ‘unwind’, and the Sun’s magnetic field pervades the solar system at all times. Your picture of winding and unwinding is not a correct description. If one wishes to [over]simplify, one can describe the solar cycle as a conversion from poloidal fields (at solar minimum) [running North-South] to toroidal fields (at solar maximum) [running East-West] back to poloidal fields. But even that picture is too crude. The wound up [toroidal] fields disintegrate and the debris moves to the poles where it slowly cancels out the old polar fields and builds a new one with opposite polarity, which is then wound up again. There is no ‘unwinding’.

It is often said on these pages that solar magnetic cycles continued during Maunder Minimum, based on the available C14 proxy data.
Let’s consider following:
a) C14 shows 3 cycles from 1650 to 1710 in duration of 18, 20 and 22 years, far too long to fall into same category as known sunspot magnetic cycles, in addition the C14 nucleation process is not sensitive to the solar magnetic field polarity
b) Data presented by Jackson & Bloxham show that the Earth magnetic field has (sub) oscillations with period of about 22 years in addition the C14 nucleation process is also modulated by the Earth’s magnetic field variability.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MMc.htm
Thus it could be concluded that the C14 data during Maunder Minimum, do not show solar but the Earth’s magnetic oscillations.
Supplementary: further questions arise regearding cause/s of oscillations.

I love the comments here. This is real science. Let all of the ideas see the light of day and have a robust discussion. Then sit back and observe. Then start the process over again. I love science when done properly.

vukcevic says:
March 7, 2013 at 8:29 amIt is often said on these pages that solar magnetic cycles continued during Maunder Minimum
And very true that is.

Let’s consider following:
a) C14 shows 3 cycles from 1650 to 1710 in duration of 18, 20 and 22 years, far too long to fall into same category as known sunspot magnetic cycles,

the 14C residence time in the atmosphere and biosphere is too long to show the fine structure with such precision. 10Be has a much shorter residence time and can show 11-year cycles, and it does: slides 16-17 of http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Svalgaard12.pdf

the 14C residence time in the atmosphere and biosphere is too long to show the fine structure with such precision.

Dr. S. data disagrees with your comment.
Strange that from 1600-1650, the C14 shows what could considered normal solar magnetic cycles (periods 12, 9, 10 and 14 years) then suddenly switches to cycles which are more in line with the Earth’s field (18, 20 and 22 years) than again post 1710 back to the normal cycles.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MMc.htm
More credible explanation is required for the anomaly and I have offered one:Thus it could be concluded that the C14 data during Maunder Minimum, do not show solar but the Earth’s magnetic oscillations.
Dr. S. you do need to do better.

NASA now knows that the solar activity controls the earth climate, and there is the higher the sunspots number, the higher the earth temperature. It is NASA’s hope the higher sunspots can cover up the flawed AGW “theory”.

vukcevic says:
March 7, 2013 at 9:05 amDr. S. data disagrees with your comment.
No, your faulty interpretation of the data does. The storage in the 14C reservoirs attenuates periodic variations depending on their period. This means that for 11-yr variations the amplitude of 14C variations is 100 times smaller than for 10Be. For the 2300-yr Halstatt cycle the attenuation is a factor 10. For a 22-yr cycle the factor is 50, so 11-yr peaks will only behalf of 22-yr peaks which means that the power spectrum will seem to be dominated by 22-yr peaks rather than 11-year peaks, thus misleading people [like you] who does not know the science. The 10Be data shows the 11-yr cycle very clearly as slide 16 of the link I gave you demonstrates. When will you learn to listen?

vukcevic says:
March 7, 2013 at 9:05 amDr. S. data disagrees with your comment.
Further to modulation during the Maunder Minimum: http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle-10Be-Maunder-Min.png the power spectrum peaks nicely at 12.5 years. A bit too long for the planetary hypothesis, one may note, while I’m at it [but otherwise irrelevant]. So, listen and learn.

vukcevic says:
March 7, 2013 at 10:13 amIn Maunder Minimum, poleward migration rate of magnetic fields was about 0.7 m/s and solar cycle length was about 20 yrs.
Same problem as with your other comment. The 11-yr cycle is suppressed due to 14C storage. When will you learn?

lsvalgaard says: March 6, 2013 at 11:13 pm
“And, by the way, what flips at solar maximum are just the polar caps, not the rest of the Sun.”…
I interpret this to mean that the polarity of the individual spots in each hemisphere do not reverse, when viewing the magnetograms at SOHO?
March 7, 2013 at 7:28 am. “If one wishes to [over]simplify, one can describe the solar cycle as a conversion from poloidal fields (at solar minimum) [running North-South] to toroidal fields (at solar maximum) [running East-West] back to poloidal fields. But even that picture is too crude. The wound up [toroidal] fields disintegrate and the debris moves to the poles where it slowly cancels out the old polar fields and builds a new one with opposite polarity, which is then wound up again. There is no ‘unwinding’.”
This seems to describe a magnetic field that is gimbaled and flips around, subjected to gyroscopic precession. Is there an electromagnetic equivalent to precession or P-factor that exerts a 90 degree torque toward the magnetic axis?

Richard G says:
March 7, 2013 at 11:10 am“And, by the way, what flips at solar maximum are just the polar caps, not the rest of the Sun.”…
I interpret this to mean that the polarity of the individual spots in each hemisphere do not reverse, when viewing the magnetograms at SOHO?
That is right. The spots do not reverse at solar maximum [but at solar minimum]

This seems to describe a magnetic field that is gimbaled and flips around, subjected to gyroscopic precession. Is there an electromagnetic equivalent to precession or P-factor that exerts a 90 degree torque toward the magnetic axis?
Both analogs fail. The Sun does not work that way. Here is an explanation of the basics: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Solar_dynamo

Further to modulation during the Maunder Minimum: http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle-10Be-Maunder-Min.png the power spectrum peaks nicely at 12.5 years. A bit too long for the planetary hypothesis, one may note, while I’m at it [but otherwise irrelevant]. So, listen and learn.

Well, I am sure you must have noticed that there is very little or no difference between 10Be and C14 for the principal part of the Maunder Minimum between 1660 and 1700 (see graph)http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MMc.htm
main differences are before 1660
Since V. I. Makarov & A. G. Tlatov agree with me; you do have to do better.In Maunder Minimum, poleward migration rate of magnetic fields was about 0.7 m/s and solar cycle length was about 20 yrs. http://www.ias.ac.in/jarch/jaa/21/193-196.pdf

vukcevic says:Well, I am sure you must have noticed that there is very little or no difference between 10Be and C14 for the principal part of the Maunder Minimum between 1660 and 1700
And since 10Be shows a 12.5 yr period during that time what do you conclude about 14C if there is no difference?Since V. I. Makarov & A. G. Tlatov agree with me; you do have to do better.
First, their data is old. Second, they did not take into effect the attenuation and delays caused by 14C storage. You still don’t learn anything. Here is some advice: when I tell you something take it to heart. Perhaps my good friend Miyahara could tell you some more: http://www.leif.org/EOS/IAU2011_Miyahara.pdf She finds periods from 9-14 years for Grand Minima.
The bottom line is that 14C is very much attenuated for periods as short as 11 years, and even delayed [20 year cycles are delayed 5 years, and 100-year cycles by 20 years] and thus are not very good for determining such periods. 10Be should be used. And there is a good solar modulation of cosmic rays during the MM.

ukcevic says:Well, I am sure you must have noticed that there is very little or no difference between 10Be and C14 for the principal part of the Maunder Minimum between 1660 and 1700
And since 10Be shows a 12.5 yr period during that time what do you conclude about 14C if there is no difference?Since V. I. Makarov & A. G. Tlatov agree with me; you do have to do better.
First, their data is old. Second, they did not take into effect the attenuation and delays caused by 14C storage. You still don’t learn anything. Here is some advice: when I tell you something take it to heart. Perhaps my good friend Miyahara could tell you some more: http://www.leif.org/EOS/IAU2011_Miyahara.pdf She finds periods from 9-14 years for Grand Minima.
The bottom line is that 14C is very much attenuated for periods as short as 11 years, and even delayed [20 year cycles are delayed 5 years, and 100-year cycles by 20 years] and thus are not very good for determining such periods. 10Be should be used. And there is a good solar modulation of cosmic rays during the MM.

The bottom line is that 14C is very much attenuated for periods as short as 11 years, and even delayed [20 year cycles are delayed 5 years, and 100-year cycles by 20 years] and thus are not very good for determining such periods. 10Be should be used. And there is a good solar modulation of cosmic rays during the MM.

But there is no significant difference between C14 and 10Be data during 1660-1700 period, the principal part of the Maunder Minimum. See graph:http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MMc.htm
You may whish to evade that part, it is your choice.

vukcevic says:
March 7, 2013 at 12:33 pmBut there is no significant difference between C14 and 10Be data during 1660-1700 period, the principal part of the Maunder Minimum.
10Be shows an 11-year cycle and you say that 14C does not: http://www.leif.org/research/Maunder-Minimum-Cycles.png and in true ‘hide the decline’-style you omit the first half of the interval in your graph. You are becoming tedious. There is nothing shameful in you being wrong: you have been so often that it ought to be second nature by now.
Bottom line: there is a vigorous cosmic ray modulation caused by the Sun during the Maunder Minimum, albeit with a little bit longer period [12-14 years] than we have had the past, say 50 years.
As Berggren et al. put it: “10Be deposition is anti-correlated to solar activity over the 11-year Schwabe solar cycle, and correlated to neutron monitor data. Periodicity in 10Be during the Maunder minimum reconfirms that the solar dynamo retains cyclic behavior even during grand solar minima.” http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL038004-Berggren.pdf

Maunder Minimum was 1650-1700, and not 1600-1700.
There are only two cycles for 40 years (out of 50) for the part of MM 1660-1700 in both 10Be and C14 data (minimum to minimum 1660 to 1676 and 1676 to 1700).http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MMc.htm

In Berggren paper only graph d (Fig.2.) only one out of six, shows any meaningful response during MM, but than it shows 5 cycles (10 years each) not 4 as you also wrongly suggest in http://www.leif.org/research/Maunder-Minimum-Cycles.png so I conclude that the Berggren result is due to filter ringing. I am interested in facts as contained in the data, the rest I’ll leave to you.

vukcevic says:
March 7, 2013 at 2:24 pmI am interested in facts as contained in the data, the rest I’ll leave to you.
So you didn’t learn anything…

In Berggren paper only graph d (Fig.2.) only one out of six, shows any meaningful response during MM, but than it shows 5 cycles (10 years each)
5 cycles in 50 years is 10 year per cycle. And you didn’t read the text of the paper. Only Figures 2d and 2f are relevant. The others show the concentration of 10Be, but that has to be corrected for the thickness of the layers to get the flux which is what we are interested on. And 2f is marred by the poor data from Dye-3 as they explain in paragraphs [13] and [14]. So, the only one with good data is 2d. This is also explained in slides 16 and 17 of http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Svalgaard12.pdf

So one more time:
Bottom line: there is a vigorous cosmic ray modulation caused by the Sun during the Maunder Minimum, albeit with a little bit longer period [12-14 years] than we have had the past, say 50 years. As Berggren et al. put it: “10Be deposition is anti-correlated to solar activity over the 11-year Schwabe solar cycle, and correlated to neutron monitor data. Periodicity in 10Be during the Maunder minimum reconfirms that the solar dynamo retains cyclic behavior even during grand solar minima.”

vukcevic says:
March 7, 2013 at 2:24 pmMaunder Minimum was 1650-1700, and not 1600-1700.
Neither, new data [Vaquero et al. 2011; see Miyahara’s talk I linked to] puts the start of the MM at 1619. The cosmic ray record is contaminated by volcanic activity near and around 1700, so the data from the last decade of the 17th century are not reliable. The mark of a true pseudo-scientist is to cling to obsolete data as long as they ‘fit’, long past their ‘sell-by date’. You do a good job at that.

So not only two Russian papers (from 1995 and 2000) and the scientists from Solar Station of the Pulkovo Observatory, claiming :In Maunder Minimum, poleward migration rate of magnetic fields was about 0.7 m/s and solar cycle length was about 20 yrs. http://www.ias.ac.in/jarch/jaa/21/193-196.pdf
but NASA is also wrong that the Maunder Minimum (updated 2013/03/01) started in 1645 http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_yearly.jpg
If data doesn’t fit the ‘Stanford ideology – sun has nothing to do with it’, tell everyone data is ‘obsolete’.

lsvalgaard says: March 7, 2013 at 3:15 pmBottom line: there is a vigorous cosmic ray modulation caused by the Sun during the Maunder Minimum, albeit with a little bit longer period [12-14 years] than we have had the past, say 50 years. As Berggren et al. put it: “10Be deposition is anti-correlated to solar activity over the 11-year Schwabe solar cycle, and correlated to neutron monitor data.

Thus you take Berggren et al paper as a final arbiter on this matter, and (btw) you extensively quote in number of your papers and presentations.
It can be easily demonstrated that the Berggren et al paper is worthless.

– graph 2d shows 5 cycles in 50 years is 10 year per cycle.
– you said the Sun during the Maunder Minimum, albeit with a little bit longer period [12-14 years]
– Two Russian papers claim: In Maunder Minimum, poleward migration rate of magnetic fields was about 0.7 m/s and solar cycle length was about 20 yrs. http://www.ias.ac.in/jarch/jaa/21/193-196.pdf

Berggren et al paper shows oscillations of 10 year period at MM.
Samples are from Greenland, where precipitations are direct function of what is happening just of its south western coast in the North Atlantic (sub-polar gyre) the source of the AMO oscillations, with periods of varying between 9,2 and 10.1 years.
10Be nucleation process is strongly affected by rate of the precipitations, so Berggren et al paper discovered the AMO and not the solar cycles in their analysis.

However I agree with:10Be depends on the geomagnetic field [the biggest factor], climate [the next biggest], and finally solar activity.

Lets consider them all in the reverse order:
– ‘solar activity’ [least] : it was non existent no modulation found.

– ‘climate [the next biggest]’ : was perceptible in samples as discovered as Berggren et al (2d graph) and coincidental with the AMO at 10 year periods, but much shorter than Dr. L.S. estimates at 12-14 years.

– ‘geomagnetic field [the biggest factor]’: most obvious and likely modulator at about 20 years as per two Russian papers quoted above.
m.a. vukcevic suggests that the solar magnetic field is not but the Earth’s field (which oscillates at about 21 or so years) is the modulator of 10Be and C14 during Maunder Minimum.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MMc.htm

Why all this matters:
– If it can be shown that the solar magnetic cycling was normal during the Maunder Minimum which coincided with the coldest part of the LIA, than it follows that recent decades of warming are not related with the high solar magnetic activity, i.e. reinforces the often repeated ‘the sun has nothing to do with it’.
– If solar magnetic oscillations were not present during coldest period in historical time, than it is plausible that the warmest period in the last three centuries could be related to more intense recent solar activity, and ‘the sun has lot to do with it’.

vukcevic says:
March 8, 2013 at 3:08 amThe choice is yours.
The choice is easy. There is general agreement among cosmic ray physicists that the solar dynamo cycled normally during the MM with a period a couple of years longer than it has been in the 20th century. This conclusion is based on modern measurements of the last decade. There is also general agreement that because the residence time of 14C is so long [400 years for the atmosphere and 1300 years for the oceans] the amplitude of 11-yr variations will be somewhat [a factor of two] suppressed compared to 22-yr variations. It is also becoming clear that the MM started earlier [1620] and ended earlier than commonly believed. You see, science does make progress.

You see, science does make progress.
Agree, all interested should read the above essay by vukcevic and disregard the agreement among cosmic ray physicists that the solar dynamo cycled normally during the MM

vukcevic says:
March 8, 2013 at 6:59 amall interested should read the above essay by vukcevic and disregard the agreement among cosmic ray physicists that the solar dynamo cycled normally during the MM
DK-syndrome strikes again….

Ulric Lyons says:
March 8, 2013 at 2:39 pmso that would 8 per 100yrs, how do you know it is 8 rather than 9 as would be expected from the normal average period?
Because that is what the cosmic record tells us. The period was slightly longer than it has been lately.

Jon says:
March 8, 2013 at 3:55 pm“There is general agreement among cosmic ray physicists …”
Presumably this means that some disagree???
You are presumptuous. I don’t know of any who disagree.

Leif Svalgaard says:
“Because that is what the cosmic record tells us. The period was slightly longer than it has been lately.”

So how did Walmeier produce his dates for maxima at 1615.5, 1926, 1639.5, 1649, 1660, 1675, 1685, 1693, 1705.5?
Can we tell the polarity was during the very early 17th century so as to confirm whether say 1605 or 1615 was an odd or even numbered cycle?

vukcevic says:
March 9, 2013 at 3:59 am“new data [Vaquero et al. 2011; see Miyahara’s talk I linked to] puts the start of the Maunder Minimum at 1619.”
Data from Colorado University (the TSI people) strongly dispute such assertion as unfounded.
That is not data measured by TIM, but simply Lean’s old, obsolete reconstruction using the Group Sunspot Number. Read Vaquero’s paper from the Sunspot Workshop http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Vaquero2.pdf or his paper with Usokin et al.:
Revisited Sunspot Data: A New Scenario for the Onset of the Maunder Minimum
Vaquero, José M.; Gallego, M. C.; Usoskin, Ilya G.; Kovaltsov, Gennady A.
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 731, Issue 2, article id. L24, 4 pp. (2011).
Abstract
The Maunder minimum forms an archetype for the Grand minima, and detailed knowledge of its temporal development has important consequences for the solar dynamo theory dealing with long-term solar activity evolution. Here, we reconsider the current paradigm of the Grand minimum general scenario by using newly recovered sunspot observations by G. Marcgraf and revising some earlier uncertain data for the period 1636-1642, i.e., one solar cycle before the beginning of the Maunder minimum. The new and revised data dramatically change the magnitude of the sunspot cycle just before the Maunder minimum, from 60-70 down to about 20, implying a possibly gradual onset of the minimum with reduced activity started two cycles before it. This revised scenario of the Maunder minimum changes, through the paradigm for Grand solar/stellar activity minima, the observational constraint on the solar/stellar dynamo theories focused on long-term studies and occurrence of Grand minima.
Also at http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.1520

Can we tell the polarity was during the very early 17th century so as to confirm whether say 1605 or 1615 was an odd or even numbered cycle?
Miyahara concludes that the polarity changes were normal during the MM: http://www.leif.org/EOS/IAU2011_Miyahara.pdf

Ulric Lyons says:
March 9, 2013 at 8:36 amWaldmeier says 1685 not 1687, which I presume is from sunspot observations and not a proxy. A max to max cycle of 20yrs from 1685 to 1705 is not realistic.
I can live with 1685 [although Hoyt&Schatten record zero spots for that year], but there really were almost no observations of sunspots at that time [and Hoyt&Schatten and Vaquero and others have dug up more data than Waldmeier had, so Waldmeier is not Gospel Truth], so direct observations are not reliable enough to pin down the cycles. And 1705 is also uncertain [again: no data].The bottom line is that there is no good sunspot data for that period, so we can’t really tell. Proxies may be the best bet. The cycle length has not been constant over time, e.g. was above 12 years during the 19th century [where we do have reasonable data].

Ulric Lyons says:
March 9, 2013 at 10:55 amThere does seem to be standard Hale periodicity through the period in question.
Page 16: http://www.leif.org/EOS/IAU2011_Miyahara.pdf
Yes, with a 14-year period. Just shows how uncertain all this is.

vukcevic says:
March 9, 2013 at 11:50 amLearning is for the acquiescent, outliers of science are domain of my interest.
That is OK, as long as they are treated scientifically, which you do not, so they are not of interest to science and wrongful conclusions are worthless [but can be entertaining].

Ulric Lyons says:
March 9, 2013 at 12:10 pm” The cycle length has not been constant over time, e.g. was above 12 years during the 19th century [where we do have reasonable data].”
11.53yrs average from May 1798 to Feb 1902
Not constant, so a long-term average is meaningless. You have to look at the distribution:
It is not clear what you so desperately are try to get at. The fact is that the solar cycle length is not constant over time, but has long-term variations.

lsvalgaard says:
March 9, 2013 at 12:37 pm
“It is not clear what you so desperately are try to get at.”

It’s very clear what I am getting at, which is that the cycles follow Ju/Ea/Ve syzygies for many hundreds of years. If there is any desperation, I would say it is your inflation of the average cycle length to attempt to disprove this fact.

Not constant, so a long-term average is meaningless. You have to look at the distribution:
It is not clear what you so desperately are try to get at. The fact is that the solar cycle length is not constant over time, but has long-term variations.

I see several very distinct “groups” of data: But, what year was that single “square” cycle at 13.5 year length?

RACookPE1978 says:
March 9, 2013 at 1:23 pmI see several very distinct “groups” of data: But, what year was that single “square” cycle at 13.5 year length?
The cycles that peaked in 1870.5 and 1884.0. Lengths depend on if you measure from max to max or from min to min. People will usually pick the measure that tends to confirm what they want to see. Pick you own.

Dr. S. That is OK, as long as they are treated scientifically, which you do not, so they are not of interest to science and wrongful conclusions are worthless [but can be entertaining].
So let’s be entertained (with the respect of Dr.S’s sensitivity to some items I am using conditional ‘if’)
Miyahara is mildly enthusiastic about the cycles’ polarity, current sheet and the Parker spiral. Many have suggested astronomical planetary alignments, but as possible drivers do not allow for such wide variation of the solar cycles. When I constructed formula depending on Jupiter orbit + Jupiter/Saturn synodic period, it was obvious that the direct alignment is not a viable solution (eliminating factors such as gravity, acceleration or tides).
Magnetosphere of Jupiter is huge (extends to more than 5 AU reaching Saturn’s orbit) and ‘if there is an electro and magnetic link to the polar fields (seed of the next cycle) http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm, than it has to be a main player. Saturn’s magnetosphere on its own is probably of minor importance, but every 19 or so years two magnetospheres join into an awesome magnetic entity
I digress, back to Miyahara and the Parker spiral. ‘If the link is achieved along the Parker spiral, then there is an interesting alignment of two magnetic giants as I constructed some time agohttp://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/J-S-angle.htm
with odd and even cycles alignment switching every 100+ years (105-7 year cycle).
The 105 year periodicity is also present in http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC4.htm identifying various anomalies including the Maunder Min.
So far so good, but how to account for the variable SC length?
Solar wind velocity.
When slow and fast stream interact a ‘magnetic scattering region’ (also co-rotating interaction region) is created, location of its appearance along the Parker spiral is dependant of the ratio of the solar wind velocities in the two streams.
Hopefully, Dr. S. as helpful as ever would in an unbiased manner (remembering conditional ‘if’) explain the ratios of velocities in the weak (longer) and the strong (shorter cycles).

Ulric Lyons says:
March 9, 2013 at 1:43 pmyou started at 12.5yrs, then reduced than swiftly to 11.7yrs when challenged, and as you can go with 1685, that’s down to 11.43yrs.
The power spectrum of the 10Be during the MM has a peak at 12.5 years. Counting cycles further back reduces that to 11.7 years. BTW, you are not ‘challenging’ anybody. I’m trying to tell you what the data show. I don’t know what period you are shooting for, but the data during the MM are not precise enough to pin down the cycle length with any precision, expect that it is likely a bit longer than recent values, just as it was during the 19th century. The cycle length is not constant but varies several years.

vukcevic says:
March 9, 2013 at 2:11 pmMagnetosphere of Jupiter is huge (extends to more than 5 AU reaching Saturn’s orbit)
It is teeny tiny seen from the Sun [extends over something like a 1/50,000 of the sky].

and ‘if there is an electro and magnetic link to the polar fields (seed of the next cycle)
But since there is not, that idea is dead on arrival.

but every 19 or so years two magnetospheres join into an awesome magnetic entity
Nonsense.

‘If the link is achieved along the Parker spiral
But since there is no such link…

Solar wind velocity.
When slow and fast stream interact a ‘magnetic scattering region’ (also co-rotating interaction region) is created, location of its appearance along the Parker spiral
The solar wind expands radially, not along the spiral. The ‘spiral’ is just the location of where the region has been, not where it is. Garden sprinkler is a good illustration.

explain the ratios of velocities in the weak (longer) and the strong (shorter cycles).
Oversimplifying: stronger cycles come from a stronger solar magnetic field, but that doesn’t really matter as the solar wind speed does not vary as you think.

The best way to describe your nonsense it perhaps a comment by ‘Tom in Florida’:
Tom in Florida says:
March 7, 2013 at 5:33 am
Years ago I was stationed in Hawaii and my son was about 5 years old. He understood the correlation between putting up a Christmas tree and then having presents appear under it on the morning of Dec 25. His understanding was that Santa Claus came in the night and placed the presents there (theory). Then one Christmas morning he noticed the doors and windows were locked from the inside (real world data). He wanted to know how Santa could get in under those conditions. I realized it was time to explain the truth to him.
Moral of story: anything seems possible when you do not understand the science behind a theory.
Just wondering if David and Vuk know that the windows and doors are locked.

vukcevic says:
March 9, 2013 at 2:11 pm
“Magnetosphere of Jupiter is huge (extends to more than 5 AU reaching Saturn’s orbit) and ‘if there is an electro and magnetic link to the polar fields (seed of the next cycle) http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm, than it has to be a main player.”

It does not extend that far at all towards the Sun, so it cannot work like that. The only option open is that the Sun would be being effected by the angular arrangement of its own magnetic connections to the planets, and not by magnetic influence from the planets. The you don’t have to overlook the combinations that actually track the Hale cycle.

lsvalgaard says:
March 9, 2013 at 2:40 pm
” I’m trying to tell you what the data show.”

And I am having to continuously correct your miscalculations, e.g.:
“..was above 12 years during the 19th century”
when it was really ~11.53yrs on average between 1798 and 1902.

And:
There does seem to be standard Hale periodicity through the period in question.
Page 16: http://www.leif.org/EOS/IAU2011_Miyahara.pdf
Leif replies:
“Yes, with a 14-year period. Just shows how uncertain all this is.”

And to remind you, we were discussing whether there were one or two cycles from 1685(1687?) to 1705, and the 10Be graph on page 16 does not show a 14yr Hale signal around those decades.

lsvalgaard says:
“.. but the data during the MM are not precise enough to pin down the cycle length with any precision..] The cycle length is not constant but varies several years.”

It’s not as if I wouldn’t have noticed the length variations! The issue was not the precise average length, but the number of cycles during the 17th century.

Ulric Lyons says:
March 9, 2013 at 4:46 pmwhen it was really ~11.53yrs on average between 1798 and 1902.
One more time: the data is not good enough for a precise calculation. Good data starts in ~1820 with Schwabe’s observations. Dividing the [good] record into two halves and computing the power spectrum gives this:http://www.leif.org/research/FFT-Daily-Sunspot-Number-1st-2nd-halves.png you should be able to see that the period in the 1st [red] half [‘the 19th century’] is significantly higher than in the 2nd [blue] half [‘the 20th century’]. This is the point: the solar cycle length has systematic long-term variations.

And to remind you, we were discussing whether there were one or two cycles from 1685(1687?) to 1705, and the 10Be graph on page 16 does not show a 14yr Hale signal around those decades.The data is not good enough to pin this down. Miyahara finds a 14-yr cycle in 14C. The 10Be data is not so clear. We simply do not know what the period was, or if there were one or two cycles, or three [as Usoskin suggests].

The issue was not the precise average length, but the number of cycles during the 17th century.
The correct answer is that we don’t know. There were 7 cycles 1605-1687, but we do not know how many cycles there were between 1687 and 1820. It could be two, three, or four. And if we knew the number of cycles we could calculate the precise average length during that period, so that IS clearly the issue. Now what average length would you like to see?

vukcevic says:
March 9, 2013 at 2:11 pmWhen slow and fast stream interact a ‘magnetic scattering region’ (also co-rotating interaction region) is created, location of its appearance along the Parker spiral
To idealize a bit: solar magnetic fields are organized into large-scales structures: polar fields and ‘sector structure’ http://www.leif.org/research/Model%20Polar-Sector%20Solar%20Magnetic%20Fields.pdf and http://www.leif.org/research/A%20View%20of%20Solar%20Magnetic%20Fields%2C%20the%20Solar%20Corona%2C%20and%20the%20Solar%20Wind%20in%20Three%20Dimensions.pdf
Along the sector boundary in the corona the field is generally multipolar and ‘closed’ so the solar wind has a harder time to get out. This means that the solar wind speed near the sector boundary is low. In the middle of a sector the field is generally weaker and unipolar and more ‘open’ and a high-speed stream will usually emanate from such areas. So, near the Sun you will have an alternation of slow and fast winds [in an ideal case four of each as we cross a sector boundary four times]. This does not change with the cycles, there is no difference between even and odd, or strong or weak, or negative or postive, or whatever cycles.
Because of solar rotation, solar wind of different speeds are emitted in the same direction, so fast wind will run into slow wind and produce a compression region by scooping up the plasma followed by a rarefaction region [a co-rotating interaction region – the Sun, of course, knows nothing about this as the wind is streaming away supersonically]. With increasing distance these regions will steepen into shocks [which BTW scatter cosmic rays out of the solar system]. In the way out to the heliopause there will be about 25 of these shocks wrapping completely around the Sun that many times. The latitudinal extent of these shocks [and the sector boundary – the heliospheric current sheet] changes with the phase of the solar cycle: small [~10-15 degrees] at solar minimum and large [~80-90 degrees] at solar maximum. This variation is the cause of the solar cycle modulation of cosmic rays: http://www.leif.org/research/HCS-Nature-1976.pdf
This is how the solar wind speed varies.

Ulric Lyons says:
March 9, 2013 at 2:47 pm
vukcevic says:
March 9, 2013 at 2:11 pm “Magnetosphere of Jupiter is huge (extends to more than 5 AU reaching Saturn’s orbit)
…
It does not extend that far at all towards the Sun,
……………….
I assumed that was more than obvious, and it was not implied.

lsvalgaard says:
“There were 7 cycles 1605-1687, but we do not know how many cycles there were between 1687 and 1820. It could be two, three, or four. And if we knew the number of cycles we could calculate the precise average length during that period, so that IS clearly the issue. Now what average length would you like to see?”

My point was that there should be 9 cycles from 1605 to 1705. If you want a precise average, check the Ju-Ea-Ve syzygy cycles over a couple of thousands years.

Ulric Lyons says:
March 10, 2013 at 3:50 amMy point was that there should be 9 cycles from 1605 to 1705.
How many cycles should there have been 1605-1687? This is a better question as we know the answer [seven].

vukcevic says:
March 9, 2013 at 2:11 pmwith odd and even cycles alignment switching every 100+ years (105-7 year cycle).
Are you claiming that the cycles change polarity every 100+ years, such that the polar fields did not flip for the cycles 100+ years apart?

Hi doc
Since you ask, here it is, whole story (it is a good entertainment if you whish to verify results). This was just as an exercise done more than 2 years ago. There was a prolong WUWT discussion between Dr.S and gravitation planetarists about the SC minima and various alignment. In my formula ( if electro and magnetic feedback has any chance, none I hear you say, fine with me) there are two factors, Jupiter’s orbit and J/S synodic period.
Since astronomic J/S alignment doesn’t work, the test was to see what would happen if both J and S are linked with same trajectory of the Parker spiral, since J is always on one.
Nasa, fortunately produced animation of the Spiral going to 10 AU, from its composition it was obvious that the heliocentric angle between two planets to be positioned on the same leg of the spiral is always greater than 180 and less than 540 degrees (ie more than half a circle and less than 1.5 circle), allowing for large astronomical displacement for, let’s call it, Parker spiral ‘conjunction’.
Result was a bit of surprise, if you whish call it coincidence, but I have no idea what physical meaning might be if any (so no need for a brutal put-down). It was very laborious effort, so I only did 1800-2010.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/J-S-angle.htm
For calculation of the angular displacement I usedhttp://www.skyviewcafe.com/skyview.php?version=4
‘Orbits’ tab, ‘Options’ out to Saturn, select time of a SC minimum place cursor on J and S, note heliocentric longitude, calculate angular difference, considering that the spiral has to encounter J first than S.
Result:
1810.4 …..6 ….213
1823.3 ….7 ….392
1833.9 ….8 ….209
1843.5 ….9 ….403
1856.0 ….10 ….261
1867.2 ….11 ….446
1878.9 ….12 ….310
1889.6 ….13 ….448
1901.7 ….14 ….358
1913.6 ….15 ….215
1923.6 ….16 ….391
1933.8 ….17 ….230
1944.2 ….18 ….418
1954.3 ….19 ….236
1964.9 ….20 ….443
1976.5 ….21 ….277
1986.8 ….22 ….460
1996.6 ….23 ….283
2008.7 ….24 ….491

Variations of Solar and Cosmic Ray Cycles
at the Maunder Minimumhttp://www.leif.org/EOS/IAU2011_Miyahara.pdf pg7
Two lengthened cycles before the onset of the Maunder Minimum
First lengthened cycle
> weaker polar field
Second lengthened cycle
> both weakened polar field & slower meridional circulation

Suppressed, interupted or just slowing down for no apparent reason. Looks like the solar system has changed due to some exterior forces acting upon it again, just like it changed during the M M.

We need a mechanicism..turbulence..this ol solarsystem ship can be rocked by the turbulence of the interstellar background. It’s a scaled up sorta thing.

Are these also examples of turbulence, of the solar system scale?
1 Solar Wind Energy Source Discovered
March 8, 2013: Using data from an aging NASA spacecraft, researchers have found signs of an energy source in the solar wind that has caught the attention of fusion researchers.
..Ion cyclotron waves are made of protons that circle in wavelike-rhythms around the sun’s magnetic field. According to a theory developed by Phil Isenberg (University of New Hampshire) and expanded by Vitaly Galinsky and Valentin Shevchenko (UC San Diego), ion cyclotron waves emanate from the sun; coursing through the solar wind, they heat the gas to millions of degrees and accelerate its flow to millions of miles per hour. Kasper’s findings confirm that ion cyclotron waves are indeed active, at least in the vicinity of Earth where the Wind probe operates..http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08mar_solarwind/

2 Cluster observes a ‘porous’ magnetopause
24 Oct 2012
..Previous discoveries derived from Cluster measurements have shown that the magnetopause is weakened by Kelvin-Helmholtz waves (KHW). These are huge swirls of plasma, up to 40 000 km across, which develop along the outer edge of the magnetosphere. Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities can occur when two adjacent flows are travelling with different speeds, so one is slipping past the other. The same phenomenon also occurs in the atmosphere when two air layers lying close to each other move at different speed.
Whether or not such waves can be excited somewhere along the magnetopause depends on the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field associated with the solar wind. Instability is facilitated when the flow is moving perpendicular to the magnetic field.
One consequence of the presence of KHW is that they result in a sudden, dramatic reconfiguration of the magnetic field lines – known as magnetic reconnection. This process of breaking and reconnecting field lines enables charged particles from the solar wind to enter the magnetosphere.
As mentioned above, one key factor in the magnetosphere/solar wind interaction is the magnetic alignment of the interplanetary magnetic fields (IMF). It is generally thought that the most important process by which the solar wind enters Earth’s magnetosphere is reconnection on Earth’s dayside. This is most efficient when the IMF is aligned southward – the opposite to the northward alignment of Earth’s magnetic field. The temporary tangling of the field lines creates ideal conditions for magnetic reconnection, allowing large amounts of plasma and magnetic energy to be transferred from the solar wind to the magnetosphere.

Magnetic reconnection also occurs with a northward orientation of the IMF, but it is more localised to higher latitudes. Spacecraft observations have indicated that Kelvin-Helmholtz waves may also play an important role in the transfer of solar wind material into the magnetosphere during a northward IMF..http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=50977

3 Detection of Small-Scale Structures in the Dissipation Regime of Solar-Wind Turbulence
Publication date: 08 Nov 2012
Copyright: American Physical Society
Recent observations of the solar wind have pointed out the existence of a cascade of magnetic energy from the scale of the proton Larmor radius rhop down to the electron Larmor radius rhoe scale. In this Letter we study the spatial properties of magnetic field fluctuations in the solar wind and find that at small scales the magnetic field does not resemble a sea of homogeneous fluctuations, but rather a two-dimensional plane containing thin current sheets and discontinuities with spatial sizes ranging from l>=rhop down to rhoe and below. These isolated structures may be manifestations of intermittency that localize sites of turbulent dissipation. Studying the relationship between turbulent dissipation, reconnection, and intermittency is crucial for understanding the dynamics of laboratory and astrophysical plasmas.

Ulric Lyons says:
March 10, 2013 at 10:02 amAgain indicating a maximum at 1705. I’ll take it that there were two cycles from ~1685 to 1705 like there should be.
At that ‘maximum’ in 1695 there were only one sunspot group observed [on 27-30 May], so observations invalidate your assumption.

vukcevic says:
March 10, 2013 at 10:26 amnote heliocentric longitude, calculate angular difference, considering that the spiral has to encounter J first than S.
Which scatter all over the place. No surprise. And the Jovian magnetospheric tail is aligned with the radial solar wind, not with the spiral. Last, but not least: no magnetic or ‘electric’ influence can travel upstream in the supersonic solar wind. This is the piece of solid physics you should learn, remember, and cherish.

You evaded my question:“with odd and even cycles alignment switching every 100+ years (105-7 year cycle).
Are you claiming that the cycles change polarity every 100+ years, such that the polar fields did not flip for the cycles 100+ years apart?

My point was that there should be 9 cycles from 1605 to 1705.
How many cycles should there have been 1605-1687? This is a better question as we know the answer [seven].

“And 1705 is also uncertain [again: no data].”
The observations say SSN 50 centered at 1705:

Could we not then test the three cases against each of the theories that are being challenged or whatever theory or pattern is being proposed?

That is “The number of cycles and the dates of their cycle peaks are uncertain.
Thus:
If there were 7 cycles, these are dates of the seven theoretical peaks, and this is the result.
(Good, bad, or indifferent, this proves theory #1/2/3/4 …, or is proof of failure of theory #1/2/3/4 … )
If there were 8 cycles, these are the dates of the eight theoretical peaks, and this is the result.
(Good, bad, or indifferent, this proves theory #1/2/3/4 …, or is proof of failure of theory #1/2/3/4 …)
If there were 9 cycles, these are the dates of the nine theoretical peaks, and this is the result.
(Good, bad, or indifferent, this proves theory #1/2/3/4 …, or is proof of failure of theory #1/2/3/4 …)”

RACookPE1978 says:
March 10, 2013 at 10:42 am“How many cycles should there have been 1605-1687? This is a better question as we know the answer [seven].”
Could we not then test the three cases against each of the theories that are being challenged or whatever theory or pattern is being proposed?
As the data is uncertain 1690 to 1700 we can only test 1605-1687. The 10Be data shows 7 cycles with a mean period of 11.7 years. http://www.leif.org/research/Maunder-Minimum-Cycles.png
But in any event all the data are uncertain: sunspot observations, cosmic ray proxies both 14C and 10Be, so it is very hard to get a good test. It would be good if Ulrich could produce a list of where he thinks the maxima should be.

1phobosgrunt says:
March 10, 2013 at 10:30 amWe need a mechanism..turbulence..this ol solar system ship can be rocked by the turbulence of the interstellar background. It’s a scaled up sorta thing.
No, the interstellar magnetic field [an turbulence] cannot travel upstream in the supersonic solar wind. The examples you mention are about what the wind from the Sun does to the Earth and not relevant for disturbances travelling towards the Sun.

lsvalgaard says:
March 10, 2013 at 10:38 amYou evaded my question:
“with odd and even cycles alignment switching every 100+ years (105-7 year cycle).
Are you claiming that the cycles change polarity every 100+ years, such that the polar fields did not flip for the cycles 100+ years apart?
……
here is data again
1810.4 213
1823.3 392
1833.9 209
1843.5 403
1856.0 261
1867.2 446
1878.9 310
1889.6 448
1901.7 358
1913.6 215
1923.6 391
1933.8 230
1944.2 418
1954.3 236
1964.9 443
1976.5 277
1986.8 460
1996.6 283
2008.7 491
when you plot the graph you will see exactly what I meant, and it is what I said: with odd and even cycles alignment switching every 100+ years

Now I thought that the examples (processes) mentioned were ubiqitous type. So above or below..

Starting to feel like Vuks. I’ll just re watch the video of Comet Lovejoy diving or flying through the solar atomosphere and emerging. (looks more like its flying). Here’s some inspiration for ya Vuks.

1phobosgrunt says:
March 10, 2013 at 12:36 pmNow I thought that the examples (processes) mentioned were ubiquitous type.
Turbulence and instabilities are, but the don’t travel upstream, just like the ripples caused by throwing a rock into a fast-flowing river.

If ..
The solar cycle operates more efficently when the heliosphere is expanded a certain level size. Some of the pressure needs to get out.
When the background pressure begins to change and the force exerted upon it increases and it compresses the bubble, the out going pressure not escaping. Changes in escape velocity’s slowing (suppressing) solar cycle length. That could feed back a whole new population of Anomalous Cosmic Ray’s. (“role in 10BE record largely mis under estimated”)

1phobosgrunt says:
March 10, 2013 at 1:27 pmWhen the background pressure begins to change and the force exerted upon it increases and it compresses the bubble, the out going pressure not escaping. Changes in escape velocity’s slowing (suppressing) solar cycle length.
No, nothing that happens out at the outer fringes of the heliosphere bubble can affect the solar cycle as the solar wind blows supersonically: 10 tines faster than changes can propagate back to the Sun. The solar wind particles that leave the Sun are travelling faster than the escape velocity from the Sun [at the distance where the particles are – otherwise they will just fall back onto the Sun]. Fire a gun at a stationary object far away. Now fire the gun at an object moving towards you [but still far away], there will no difference ion the recoil, or the bullet will not ravel slower when aimed at the moving object.

vukcevic says:
March 10, 2013 at 11:52 amwith odd and even cycles alignment switching every 100+ years
What happens is much simpler: http://www.leif.org/research/Vuk-Failing-12.png the angle simply wraps around every 360 degrees, increasing by 17 degrees per year wrapping around in 21 years. The two series being 180 degrees apart.

vukcevic says:
March 10, 2013 at 11:52 amwith odd and even cycles alignment switching every 100+ years
correction: increasing by 17 degrees per cycle wrapping around in 360/17 = 21 cycles or .233 years.

lsvalgaard says:
March 10, 2013 at 3:25 pm
The solar wind particles that leave the Sun are travelling faster than the escape velocity from the Sun [at the distance where the particles are – otherwise they will just fall back onto the Sun]. Fire a gun at a stationary object far away. Now fire the gun at an object moving towards you [but still far away], there will no difference ion the recoil, or the bullet will not ravel slower when aimed at the moving object.
_______
Say for instance the super sonic solar wind has to become
sub sonic at 100AU instead of 150AU
because your moving towards you object is already closer than you think.
Wouldn’t that change the rate of charge exchange with our closer than thought object. Create more Anomalous Cosmic RAys?
Or if the supersonic solar wind had to slow at 75AU what would that do to the rate of charge exchange?

1phobosgrunt says:
March 10, 2013 at 6:42 pmWouldn’t that change the rate of charge exchange with our closer than thought object. Create more Anomalous Cosmic Rays?
Yes, the size of the heliosphere [whether caused by changes in the Sun or the interstellar medium] does control the flux of cosmic rays [normal and anomalous ones], but that does not influence solar activity or the solar cycle length. To keep with our gun analogy: a machine gun moves down a moving line of enemies. How they move and how close or far they are will determine the number of dead bodies found at various locations on the battlefield, but will not influence the functioning of the gun.

The sun is not infallible or untouchable and stuff like inflows, (helium focusing cone) hydrogen, dust, carbon just waltz thru.
See comet Lovejoy animations on an earlier post.
I’m seeing a permanent birfication seperating the HCS into two hemis. Do we really know the Parker spiral when it is extended to greater lengths like 75AU? Think I have seen that under debate in a recent article.

1phobosgrunt says:
March 10, 2013 at 7:27 pmThe sun is not infallible or untouchable and stuff like inflows, (helium focusing cone) hydrogen, dust, carbon just waltz thru.
All of that is just fluff that doesn’t have any effect on the solar cycle. The Sun is like a truck driving through a swarm of mosquitoes.

I’m seeing a permanent birfication seperating the HCS into two hemis
From a paper I wrote long ago: “The interplanetary magnetic field within several astronomical units of the Sun appears to have one polarity in most of the hemisphere north of the solar equatorial plane and the opposite polarity in most of the hemisphere south of the equatorial plane. The two hemispheres are separated by a curved current sheet…” This is the discovery of the HCS.http://www.leif.org/research/HCS-Nature-1976.pdf

Do we really know the Parker spiral when it is extended to greater lengths like 75AU? Think I have seen that under debate in a recent article.
What matters is not what it looks like at 75AU, but how it behaves close to the Sun.

Looking at the graph
the odd cycles have some tome to go (about 5 cycles or 110 years) to hit 540ish degree before another dip as one in 1910, making it 220-230 years.
However, the even cycles are about to hit the ceiling on the next minimum like and on the next around 2040 dip as in 1810, making it 230 years.
So situation cycles are approaching now are more like one about 1800 .
:)
Lot of fun for the next generation of ‘planetary’ nutters.

Looking at the graph
the odd cycles have some time to go (about 5 cycles or 110 years) to hit 540ish degree before another dip as one in 1910, making it 220-230 years.
However, the even cycles are about to hit the ceiling on the next minimum, and on the next one around 2040 dip, as in 1810, making it 230 years.
So situation cycles are approaching now is more like one about 1800 .
:)
Lot of fun for next generation of ‘planetary’ nutters.

lsvalgaard says:
March 10, 2013 at 10:38 am
“At that ‘maximum’ in 1695 there were only one sunspot group observed [on 27-30 May], so observations invalidate your assumption.”

The 10Be graph shows normal Hale periodicity 1685 to 1705 implying two cycles. In fact the Hale signal through those decades is the clearest in the whole series:
Page 16: http://www.leif.org/EOS/IAU2011_Miyahara.pdf
As you prefer to refer back to sunspot observations, there are zero sunspots from 1690 to 1699 except for 1695, which has 1 group and SSN = 6, again indicating a maximum there.

vukcevic says:
March 11, 2013 at 1:24 am
You are correct 200+ years, but when odd and even cycles are plotted separately…
This has nothing to do with odd/even cycles, Parker spiral, or anything interesting. It is just that Saturn goes around in its orbit at a bit slower than twice Jupiter’s period, so each time Jupiter is in certain position, Saturn will be alternatively on one side of the Sun and on the other [not quite, hence the 17 degree slip] explaining the 180 phase shift. No fun at all.

vukcevic says:
March 11, 2013 at 1:24 amYou are correct 200+ years, but when odd and even cycles are plotted separately…
This has nothing to do with odd/even cycles, Parker spiral, or anything interesting. It is just that Saturn goes around in its orbit at a bit slower than twice Jupiter’s period, so each time Jupiter is in certain position, Saturn will be alternatively on one side of the Sun and on the other [not quite, hence the 17 degree slip] explaining the 180 phase shift. No fun at all.

lsvalgaard says:
March 11, 2013 at 7:52 am
…..
Yes, the astronomic geometry is such as you describe.
Let’s consider what an electric or magnetic geometry would look like.
Assume that flow of plasma or a magnetic line is to connect the sun, Jupiter and Saturn in that order at solar minima. As you say it can’t go backwards against solar wind, and jump from one side of solar system to the other. To follow path of least resistance (at the solar minima) it has to go around stepping sideways, else it gets swept by solar wind all the way to the far reaches of the heliosphere. Applying 180 degree requirement (Parker spiral angle for crossing J and then S orbits) and assuming SC24 and SC25 about 11 years long, then the electric or magnetic geometry ishttp://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Odd-Even.htm
It identifies correctly1810 and 1915 and the next (most likely grand) minima; chance or not, I would say it is matter of conjecture, not that you would agree.

vukcevic says:
March 11, 2013 at 11:56 amTo follow path of least resistance (at the solar minima) it has to go around stepping sideways,
You haven’t learned a thing. It can’t go ‘sideways’ either. In all my years of teaching and educating people I have never come across anybody as learning resistant as you.

lsvalgaard says:
March 11, 2013 at 12:33 pm In all my years of teaching and educating people I have never come across anybody as learning resistant as you.
How true, possibly the most exceptional example of D&K syndrome, you might say.
If you have a better explanation for the 100+ years cycle than one in the link http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Odd-Even.htm
let’s see it.

vukcevic says:
March 11, 2013 at 1:39 pmIf you have a better explanation for the 100+ years cycle than one in the link
Your ideas are not an ‘explanation’ at all. Just nonsense hand waving. The angles just keep wrapping around 360 degrees because a circle is round. There are no discontinuities or jumps
The wrap-around s is elementary. Schoolchildren know this. Now you do too.

Hey doc, that is fuzzy-wuzzy answer.
a) How come that all the lots of papers showing that long-period ‘cycles’ are perfectly possible within standard dynamo did not predict forthcoming strong minimum, but simple planetary one I wrote 10 years ago (2003) did.
2) You keep regressing back to the astronomical geometry (it is not disputed) since you are totally flummoxed by the 180 degree ‘stipulation’ accurately showing 100+ years dips in the solar cycles progression.
True, I don’t understand why it works, but just coincidence for 3 successive events doesn’t work, so you resort to your standard ‘nonsense’ claim.
Btw, nearly finished new article on the geomagnetics, will email you a copy.

vukcevic says:
March 11, 2013 at 2:28 pmdid not predict forthcoming strong minimum, but simple planetary one I wrote 10 years ago (2003) did.http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003SPD….34.0603S [05/2003]
“The surprising result of these long-range predictions is a rapid decline in solar activity, starting with cycle #24” it is important to be correct for the right reason.

I don’t understand why it works, but just coincidence for 3 successive events
I once flipped a coin three times in a row, it came up heads all three times.
There is nothing mysterious or noteworthy of the 180 degree shift as I have already explained [Jupiter makes two laps when Saturn makes one]. And it is good to see that you have abandoned your magnetic/electric ‘explanation’ [“I don’t understand how it works”], no understanding is needed for coincidences.

I once flipped a coin three times in a row, it came up heads all three times.
Nonsense, doc.
Correct 3 out of 3 from the possible 25 ?
Take 25 coins, write on them numbers 1-25, mark heads on 3 of them (on 6th, 15th and 25th), line coins up, then throw blindfolded all 25 one by one in consecutive order, write down your result, then start again, and again until you get heads only and only on the 3 you marked, then come back, else you are wasting my time.

vukcevic says:
March 11, 2013 at 3:51 pmCorrect 3 out of 3 from the possible 25 ?
Now you are wasting everybody’s time. The individual cycles are not independent. There is a long cycle, so the issue is when the other minima of the long cycle are when one is chosen and there are not much choice. But this is also irrelevant as the ‘100-yr dips’ have no connection with the wrapping around at 360 degrees of the regular orbiting. In any event, it is good that you have given up your goofy magnetic/electric nonsense.

Jon says:
March 11, 2013 at 5:25 pm“There is general agreement among cosmic ray physicists …”
How is your English???? General to me mean the majority … not all!
But does not exclude ‘all’. In this case I do not know of any dissenters.
And in science “general agreement’ means that the data [or theory] are compelling enough to accept whatever it is as a fact. E.g. there is general agreement that the Earth is round, or that the Sun is powered by fusion of hydrogen to helium, or that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, If of 100 scientists a majority, 51, hold a certain view we would not call that ‘general agreement’.

Jon says:
March 12, 2013 at 2:26 pmYes, I know it does not “exclude all” but it is normally used to indicate a majority, not unanimity
No, not just ‘a majority’ [greater than 50%], but an ‘overwhelming majority’. As I said, for the case at hand, I know of no dissenters.At one time the “general agreement” was that the earth was flat
General agreement is no guarantee for correctness, but just agreement with the data we know at any given time.